Used credit in last 3 months

fatbelly

As long as you know the balances on the 'day of determination' it makes no difference whether you are £19400 or £19999.

As soon as stepchange have seen your Experian report, and you have paid £90 on your barcoded letter, the application can be submitted.

So stopping the contractual payments now seems sensible.

If you feel stepchange are dragging their heels, go elsewhere.

pieapple

fatbelly wrote: »

As long as you know the balances on the 'day of determination' it makes no difference whether you are £19400 or £19999.

As soon as stepchange have seen your Experian report, and you have paid £90 on your barcoded letter, the application can be submitted.

So stopping the contractual payments now seems sensible.

If you feel stepchange are dragging their heels, go elsewhere.

Thank you for your advice. It really is appreciated. I think I will stop payments and push ahead. If stepchange try and hold me back, i'll go elsewhere. Would love to see it through with them though as othe than advising me to delay, they've been a great reassurance.

One more question. The money I have made through selling items has gone straight into my current account which is overdrawn. This has obviously lowered my overdraft. Would it be seen as preferential treatment if I just left it in my account? Do I have do split it between all creditors thus taking me back near my overdraft limit?

fatbelly

pieapple wrote: »

Thank you for your advice. It really is appreciated. I think I will stop payments and push ahead. If stepchange try and hold me back, i'll go elsewhere. Would love to see it through with them though as othe than advising me to delay, they've been a great reassurance.

One more question. The money I have made through selling items has gone straight into my current account which is overdrawn. This has obviously lowered my overdraft. Would it be seen as preferential treatment if I just left it in my account? Do I have do split it between all creditors thus taking me back near my overdraft limit?

It won't cause a problem as long as you are selling the items for what they are worth (that's another question on the application).

But it would have made more sense to just treat the overdraft as a debt that will go in to your DRO (as it must) and open a new current account with your sales going into that, as long as you are not going to end up with more than £1000.

pieapple

fatbelly wrote: »

It won't cause a problem as long as you are selling the items for what they are worth (that's another question on the application).

But it would have made more sense to just treat the overdraft as a debt that will go in to your DRO (as it must) and open a new current account with your sales going into that, as long as you are not going to end up with more than £1000.

So do you mean im ok to just leave it in my account or should i make some pro rata payments to each debt?

I am still including it in my dro as im still slightly ovedrawn but it's the least overdrawn i've been in a long time so don't want it to seem as if i'm giving prefernece to this debt. I couldn't have put it in a separate account as I needed it to keep me under the limit for the next few weeks. If stepchange do take 4-6 weeks to process it, i'll probably have to sell more things to keep me under the limit.

fatbelly

Leave your debts alone now.

Get a new current account up and running and start using it now for your income and essential direct debits (not debt payments)

And do your DRO as soon as possible. It's going to take a few months to accrue £600 interest on your debts. But it makes sense to push on with this and not have an artificial delay

pieapple

fatbelly wrote: »

Leave your debts alone now.

Get a new current account up and running and start using it now for your income and essential direct debits (not debt payments)

And do your DRO as soon as possible. It's going to take a few months to accrue £600 interest on your debts. But it makes sense to push on with this and not have an artificial delay

Ive just rechecked all my balances and i'm actually at £19, 766 :embarasse:embarasse:embarasse:embarasse

I had forgotten to add my Argos card debt to my last sums and also interest has been added to two of them. Barclaycard are also due to add another £100 interest on monday.

So unless they process it in the next couple of weeks, i'm going to go over the limit. Last month alone I was charged £360 interest.

I have a piece of furniture I can hopeuflly get about £100 for but dont have much else.

Fatbelly, do they treat overdrafts differently then? Im petrified of getting the order rejected for preferential payemnts. Also, as im now less than £100 away from my current account being in credit, if I do sell anything else to keep my debts below the limit, should I split it between my creditors or just pay whichever one is next due?

Thanks in advance. I realise I sound like a stuck record. I'm just so scared of doing something wrong. It almost feels too good to be true to possibly get a fresh start.

mwarby

Barclaycard were very helpfull in run up to my IVA, I think they froze interest. If they know your seriously investigating debt options they might do same for you.

Another consideration is bankruptcy, IMHO you don't want to be paying more in interest than your saving in insolvency fees, unless there is another benefit.

pieapple

mwarby wrote: »

Barclaycard were very helpfull in run up to my IVA, I think they froze interest. If they know your seriously investigating debt options they might do same for you.

Another consideration is bankruptcy, IMHO you don't want to be paying more in interest than your saving in insolvency fees, unless there is another benefit.

Thank you. Ideally i'd like to avoid bankruptcy even if I have to sell more items to keep me under the limit. Just a personal choice. I've spoken to stepchange today and they've advised that they will process it as soon as possible as i'm so close to the limit.

fatbelly

pieapple wrote: »

Fatbelly, do they treat overdrafts differently then? Im petrified of getting the order rejected for preferential payemnts. Also, as im now less than £100 away from my current account being in credit, if I do sell anything else to keep my debts below the limit, should I split it between my creditors or just pay whichever one is next due?
.

An overdraft is just a debt and needs to go in with the others

pieapple wrote: »

Thank you. Ideally i'd like to avoid bankruptcy even if I have to sell more items to keep me under the limit. Just a personal choice. I've spoken to stepchange today and they've advised that they will process it as soon as possible as i'm so close to the limit.

Good